Frequently Asked Questions

• What is your Property Portfolio Plan about?

  The short answer is: it’s a road map to what you want to achieve when you retire and how you can achieve it by investing in property.

  It’s so much more than that and to fully explain this Plan, we strongly recommend you to watch this video here:

• What do you think about us making a holiday house our first investment property?

  We absolutely don’t. It’s the worst idea ever – unless you are on track to make a surplus $200K income per year continuously after your holiday house repayments are subtracted.

  Come in and have a coffee with us to find out why we are so anti-holiday house purchases as first investments.

• How have you done it? How can you afford so many?

  A careful combination of capital growth prospect forecasting and cash flow planning with a cautious buffer for provisioning is the only answer. Each property has been considered based on affordability, ongoing management and maintenance cost, gross rental income now (and future) and capital growth prospects. The property we buy now is deliberately intended not to adversely impact the borrowing capacity for the next one… and so on.

• How do investors deal with all the tenant issues like they show on Today Tonight?

  They interview their property managers like any other employee who they would entrust with the running of a business. It’s always a shame to see an investor meticulously select and buy a property, only to hand it over to the first managing agent who comes along. Investors should realise that they have a growing concern when they buy a property. If this is left to chance, it’s akin to running a business with poor financials and a bad accountant.

• Shouldn't we pay down our home first before going into more debt?

  What you should do first and foremost is talk to an experienced and accredited finance specialist about this option. It’s true what they say about good debt and bad debt, but it’s vital to get the right information and to make sure your specific situation is taken into account. Talk to one of our investment mortgage specialists about your own situation.

• I would love a new car. Should I do that first and then think about investing?

  NO! Talk to us first. Would you rather have an upgraded depreciating asset if you knew it could cost hundreds of thousands of dollars of lost opportunity?

• What do you think of "Off the Plan" an as an investment property?

  We will consider all assets on their merits, taking into account your motivation for considering them and more importantly the impact on your cash flow and your future wealth. As a general rule of thumb we are very cautious about Off the Plan” investments and our primary reasons for applying caution are as follows:

  • Many are sold directly by developers or developer’s marketers and advice around their performance is sometimes pitched as ‘free’. If anyone is giving you ‘free’ advice, you need to ask yourself if it is independent, unbiased advice, and whether the advisor or their company is getting a commission, kickback, rebate or other interest from a potential sale.
  • Banks are often tough on ‘off the plan’ sales. We don’t like assets the banks don’t like. Full stop. If it’s hard for you to buy, it could be hard for you to sell and it will be hard for others in the block to be sold. These all have a flow on effect on the growth potential of an asset so we do tread cautiously, always.
  • A sudden release of a large number of similar or identical units/apartments can compromise the values (both rental and sale values) of the asset. To compound this, if a distressed vendor has to make a distress sale, the lower sale price will have a direct effect on the value of your asset.
  • We typically prefer assets with higher ‘Land to Asset Ratios’. Come and chat to us about what types of assets fit this preference.